Fates Turn Around in the Overtime
by SavvyIthny
Summary: Quinn's dealing with a lot right now. There are three major ways her storyline could go, come Spring, none of them are easy, and here's a gritty look at one of those possibilities. Mostly Quinn, some Britt, Rachel, tiny bits of Will & Kurt.


**Turn Around in the Overtime**

Quinn stood for a moment in the shower after she turned the water off. The steam had warmed the chilly bathroom nicely, and she used her hands to squeeze the excess moisture from her hair. She ran her hands along her arms to swish the droplets off, then hesitated a moment before starting again at her shoulders and sweeping her palms down her body. She moved them over her breasts, heavy and sore and still bearing the dents of the old bra that no longer fit comfortably, before coming to rest on the bump of her stomach, a hard rounding between her hipbones.

She meant to continue the motion, swish the water down and continue over her hips and thighs, but a sudden sensation stopped her. A flop, a flutter, an odd sinking feeling that made her catch her breath. She'd felt it several times now, but for the first time it was incredibly clear that Drizzle was in there, and she was doing cheerleader flips to rival her mother's.

_Drizzle_. She shook her head, wrinkling her forehead as she castigated herself. She had to stop that. Stop it. It was a stupid name, and even if it wasn't stupid, it was _Finn's_ name. And Finn no longer wanted anything to do with either the baby or her very foolish mother. She needed to come up with something else. _Pucklet? _She rolled her eyes. Left to herself, she tended to use distancing words. _It. That. Thing. _

But now _It _was making her – _its_ – presence very clear. The rolling sensation repeated itself, moving in the other direction.

The pregnancy book that the doctor had given her described this as "quickening." The books all made it sound magical and moving. Like it was supposed to be some spiritual bonding moment, some internal communion between mother and child.

Quinn thought it was disturbing, instead. And nauseating. The rolling motion reminded her of one of the rides at Cedar Point, the one that took you up to the top of a tower and dropped you, and for a moment your stomach held before it plunged down. It was like riding a rollercoaster in the dark so that you never knew in which direction your guts were going to get pushed.

It was alien, too. She was sharing her body with a passenger she hadn't invited on board, and the passenger was starting to put her elbow on their shared armrest and demand _services._

She tried not to think these things. A good mom wouldn't think of her baby in those terms. This was more evidence of how much she would suck as a mother. She wasn't bonding, she wasn't _communing_. She was as much of a bitch as Finn had labeled her.

With a sigh, she grabbed her towel and began scrubbing dry for real. As she did so, there was a knock on the bathroom door.

"Hey Quinn?" Brittany called. "You almost done? Josh and Brandon both need showers still!"

She pulled her robe off the hook, shrugged it on, and opened the door. "Yeah, sorry," she said. "I hope I didn't use up the hot water."

"It's okay," Brittany said, flipping her ponytail to look over at Quinn. "Dad is always saying they need to be taking cold showers anyway."

Quinn couldn't help but smile at Brit, and ducked into Britt's room to pull on her clothes before heading down to the kitchen for breakfast.

She was grateful to Brittany and her parents for letting her stay with them, but it was taking time for her to get used to how different this was. At home, she and her parents had rattled around the large house, each in their own private spheres. They could go all day without even hearing each other until her mother called them together for dinner in the formal dining room. She'd had her own bathroom, and the two large water tanks in the basement had meant hot water was never a concern.

Brittany's family lived in a 3 bedroom house in an older neighborhood a few blocks from school. The "master bedroom" was smaller than Quinn's old room, Brit's two younger brothers shared the larger of the other bedrooms, and Brit's room was just big enough for a twin-with-trundle, a dresser, and a small desk. Last year, before he left for college, her older brother had carved himself out a private space in the semi-finished basement, framing in a room with two-by-fours and old drywall.

So Quinn felt welcome, but she also felt wedged in. Crowded. Like someone was always touching her, someone was always listening. Sometimes this was good; when she had the space to listen to her own thoughts, she'd herself sinking into darkness. But sometimes she wished she had more space to just think. Because she had a lot of thinking to do. About what the hell she was going to do. How she was going to keep this whole …. _Thing_… from fucking up her life completely. Because she knew, now, that any person is a knife-edge away from losing it all. That any _woman_ was at the mercy of biology and the men around her, and none of it could be counted on. Fathers, mothers, sisters, coaches, boyfriends …. A girl had to be ready to rely on herself and only herself.

She sat at the well-scrubbed table in Britt's kitchen and ate the oatmeal Britt's mom served out from a copper-bottomed saucepan on the back of the stove. She'd never liked oatmeal, but it was what was there, and she knew she had to try to eat better. For _it. _ Britt's mom looked at her with concern.

"Quinn, honey? Are you okay? You look a little flushed."

"I'm fine, thanks," she smiled back, forcing herself to breathe evenly. She felt her pulse pounding in her neck again, as it had been more often. It was anxiety, she told herself. Who wouldn't be anxious in her place, worrying about the future?

"You're sitting a bit funny, sweetie. Does your back hurt?"

"Yeah, it does," Quinn replied, realizing this was true. "It's okay. It's probably just the stress from the … the increased weight of the…." She left the word "baby" unspoken.

"The doctor at the clinic said you can take acetaminophen if you need to," Britt's mom said. "There's a bottle in the medicine cabinet upstairs."

"I know," Quinn cut her off. "I will if I need to, but I'm trying not to take anything … I mean, unless I have to."

She pulled on her coat and zipped it up with difficulty, wondering what she was going to do when she completely outgrew it with months of Ohio winter left to get through. She picked up her bag and waited while Brittany kissed her mom on the cheek, grabbed a muffin, and pulled on her own coat and mittens. She'd learned to like the walk to school, even in the cold. It felt good to be out, to be moving, to be doing something with her legs.

Quinn moved through her school day with the calm determination that had seemed to fill her after the awful moment that the truth had come to light and her world had shattered. She took precise notes in Trigonometry, handed in an outline for her English term paper, and diagrammed the process of meiosis in her Bio II notebook. Her head ached and her eyes felt hot, and she gritted her teeth against the pain in her back. At least _It_ wasn't wriggling around now, making it worse. She hadn't felt another of those nauseating swooping rolls since this morning. _It_ was probably shoving tiny pointy heels into her spinal column to cause this awful backache.

By the time her last class was over and she headed to glee club practice, she was considering asking if anyone had any Tylenol in their bags and taking a few anyway. _It_ could deal with a few over the counter pain pills. She put her backpack down next to a chair at the edge of the group, started to sit down, and felt a stabbing pain in her back yet again. This was lower down, and she realized with dawning comprehension that it felt just like ….

"I'll be right back," she blurted.

It felt just like she had to go to the bathroom _really_ bad, and she tried not to walk, not run, all the way to the girls restroom. She was already fumbling with the button on her pants as she pushed the door of the wheelchair-accessible stall open, muttering apologies to _It_ for blaming it for something that was probably Quinn's fault for not eating more of the oatmeal she was offered at breakfast every morning. Damn, pregnancy made her feel like an old lady. Peeing every five minutes AND needing prune juice and bran muffins every day in order to take a simple dump? These were not things any 16 year old should be having to deal with. No one her age should have to be so focused on the damn bathroom.

If they _told _you pregnancy made you constipated, gave you hemorrhoids, and caused big white stretchmarks on the side of your boobs, _that_ would work a whole lot better than stupid Just Say No crap, she thought.

She yanked down her pants and collapsed onto the seat, putting her elbows on her knees so she could rest her flushed face against her hands. God, she felt awful. Her pulse was hammering in her ears, sweat was prickling out along her hairline, and her guts were convulsing and cramping into the worst knot yet. Pressure gathered down her spine, into her tailbone and pelvis, and she whimpered, thinking she was going to have some awful, rending, bowel movement.

And she opened her eyes for the first time and saw the bright red stain across the crotch of her underpants, soaking through, staining the inside of her jean legs, just as all of her insides twisted hard and an awful, inexorable slithering sensation rushed through her.

Oh, no. Oh no, oh no, oh no ohno no no no no no nonononononono…

*****

She doesn't remember screaming, but she must have. It must have been loud, because she's still kneeling on the floor of the bathroom, staring, when the door slams open. She's staring at … it. Because somehow, in that awful moment, that part of her mind that had been so rational for so long was still there, and even as she must have been screaming her lungs out, that rational part had reached down and caught something warm and slippery before it fell into the toilet.

_It. _No, _her. _And she fell forward onto her knees against the stall wall, clasping _her_ to her chest, sobbing. Gasping "No, no, wait. It's too _soon_. No. Wait. No, no no no no" over and over again.

Rachel is first through the door, with Brittany right behind her, and she can hear more voices in the hall. Britt screams too, and starts to cry, but Rachel drops to her knees on the floor at Quinn's side, moves the curtain of her hair to the side to see what she's clutching, and then begins stripping off her sweater.

"Quinn! Quinn!" Look at me!" she orders. "Let me wrap her up in this! We need to keep her warm!" She pushes one side of her lavender cardigan under _her _and folds the front over the top, covering the thin red limbs and the blood smeared across Quinn's sleeves and chest.

Quinn looks up at her. "It's too late, Rachel. She's not moving. She hasn't moved since this morning. She's never moving again." And Rachel puts her arm around Quinn''s shoulder and Quinn lets her head fall against Rachel's chest and sobs.

Mr. Schue is pushing through the group gathered at the restroom door. "Rachel? What's going on? Is Quinn okay?" He stops, just close enough to see the dark head bent over the blonde one, and Rachel looks up. "She just lost the baby," she whispers sorrowfully. "I don't think she's bleeding too much, but I think she needs to get to the hospital?"

From outside the room comes a rumble, a scattering of sobs, and a metallic bang that sounds like someone just tried to put a fist through a locker.

"Can you stand up?" Rachel whispers in her ear. "Do you want to pull up your pants?" Quinn nods, still sobbing, and feels Britt on one side of her and Rachel on the other, lifting her, bearing her weight, holding her tightly between them. Cold hands on her legs find the waist of her underpants and jeans and pull them up, untangling _something_ warm and wet from them. Brit pulls them into place and fastens them while Rachel is lifting the something and rolling it into a gym towel that has appeared from someplace, handed in by someone whose face she didn't see. Rachel tucks the towel in next to the lavender sweater bundle with a stricken look on her face, wiping her hands on the outside of the towel as she does so.

"I don't think there's any reason wehave to cut the cord, right?"

The cord, Jesus, yeah. And the... rest of it. That's what that was. Her jeans are warm and wet, but she feels better covered up, with all those people out there.

The school nurse is there now, and a bunch of other people. She manages to stop sobbing, hold it back, whispers "No ambulance, please." And then repeats it louder. "It's not an emergency. Please don't call an ambulance. Please." The thought of that uproar, of strange men charging into the building and carrying her out in front of everyone makes her panic. "Please."

She doesn't follow the next bit very well, because it happens out in the hall on the other side of the door that is protecting her from everyone's eyes, but its not long before Mr. Schue is wrapping a blanket around her shoulders and gesturing for Brit and Rachel to help her through the door into the hall. Someone has told everyone to back off, and the rest of the Glee kids are only looking at her sorrowfully from the other side of the hall. Kurt is there, handing his keys to Mr. Schue, saying "Take my car, it's bigger than..." and Mr. Schue is telling Kurt he needs to drive and Schue will navigate because Schue doesn't want to try to find the hospital in a strange car.

And then she's in the backseat, still sandwiched tightly between Brit and Rachel, who are both making mostly-nonverbal sounds at her and she wants to be annoyed at them, but instead she's finding them actually soothing. Kurt looks like a terrified little boy, but he makes it to the hospital in impressive time, pushing the Navigator through the end-of-day traffic like a New York City taxi driver. She sees him watching her in the rear view mirror, eyes wide and face white, and she wants to say something reassuring about how she'll be alright, but nothing comes out and screw it, she's not the one who's supposed to be reassuring other people right now.

It would be easier for Brit and Rachel to help her if she'd let go of the bundle of purple sweater and towel, and at the circle drive at the Emergency Room entrance, Mr. Schue reaches out, briefly, in a gesture that offers to take it from her. She clutches it tighter, and he immediately raises his hands to indicate he's sorry.

Inside, Rachel and Brittany are peeled away from her sides and she's whisked away to a room while Mr. Schue starts handing over papers. The school nurse must have pulled some "in case of emergency" file, because she hears her mom's cell phone number being read off from somewhere before the door closes between the reception desk and the procedure rooms.

After that, its all strangers, speaking gently but needing to peel her sticky pants back off, wanting to touch her, asking questions like "How many weeks?" and "Did you have any spotting? Cramping?" An older nurse reaches for the bundle in her arms, and when she shrugs her away, begins ever so gently unfolding the layers of fabric. She lifts the gym towel away, does something with scissors and then carries the whole thing to a tray on the other side of the room, leaving Quinn with just Rachel's lavender sweater, growing cold now in the crook of her elbow.

The nurse is back. "May I?" she says, very quietly. "I need to see."

Quinn relaxes her arm and allows the nurse to unfold the wrappings. She doesn't want to look at what's inside, and yet does so. And despite being raw and red and unfinished, _S__he _clearly has Quinn's nose. And the unmistakeable pout of that lower lip is more telling than a mohawk would ever have been.

"I'm so sorry," she whispers. "I didn't want _this. _Whatever I said, I never wanted it this way. I'm sorry, I'm sorry…" she starts to sob again, against the breast of the strange nurse, who holds her tight and says "I know you didn't, sugar. It's not your fault."

The nurse holds her like that, while a strange doctor does an uncomfortable exam to make sure she's empty, while another nurse gently lifts _Her__ -- _her _baby _--free of Rachel's sweater, wraps her in a striped blanket that looks a lot like a dishtowel, and pulls a tiny pink hat over the even tinier head. Then she puts _H__er_ into a rolling bassinette sent down from the OB ward and leaves, pushing ___H__er _ahead down the hall.

After all that, they let people come back. Britt's mom has arrived, and comes straight across the room to her and envelops her in a hug. Britt is right behind her, and Rachel stands in the door.

"I waited," she says. "Mr. Schue and Kurt went back to school to … um… deal with stuff there."

Quinn nods. She didn't expect them to stay. She was surprised Rachel was still here.

"Mr. Schue says to not worry about practice until you're ready. And… Kurt told me to give you this." She held out a cup. "He says that in his family, when you visit someone in the hospital, you take them a milkshake. I tried to tell him … " she stopped. "I think he just wanted to do something."

Quinn snorts a bit and takes the cup, which is mostly melted but does, in fact, taste good going down. Rachel looks at her awkwardly for a few minutes, starts several sentences that each peter out after a few words, and finally says "Quinn, I'm so very sorry." Quinn gets it. There's really not much else to say, even when you're Rachel Berry. She appreciates the effort – and the fact that Rachel stopped at just that.

It's another several hours before she's discharged. Her mother never shows; Quinn refuses to ask if they managed to get reach her. She slides awkwardly into a pair of Britt's sweatpants and allows herself to be wheeled all the way to the car. Brit helps her up the stairs and into bed, but she's not really sleepy. She just wants the quiet.

In the dark, with the soft murmur of Brit's family downstairs, trying to be quiet on her behalf, she puts a hand on her stomach again. It's still thickened, but the hard mound is gone, leaving slightly wrinkly squashiness behind. And she feels empty. Crushingly, absolutely, empty. She realizes just how much she's become accustomed to the idea of another life within her, to the quiet sensations letting her know she wasn't alone. She thought she hated it, but now that it's not there, she misses it.

It comes to her now that she's notThat Girl anymore. The Pregnant Teen. The Potential Birthmother. The Unwed Mom. All those things that she became the day the word got out that the Cheerio was knocked up. She didn't like any of them, but they were all familiar roles. They had scripts that she could follow, fifth acts with well-known endings. She is off-script now. And she's never been good at improv.

She knows, though, that even as she's not That Girl, neither is she the girl she was before. She remembers thinking, in the dark of the night, that she'd give anything to get her old life back, her position with the Cheerios, her social status, her parents' approval. She remembers thinking it would be easy to just pick up all those pieces and go back to the way things were before. She knows now how much bullshit that was. She can never be that girl again.

Whatever girl she was before, whatever girl she'd avoided becoming, she can only hope that the girl she will be tomorrow would be one she doesn't mind being.

She hears soft footsteps in the hall, and the door pushed open. Brittany comes in, wearing pajamas, with her hair loose down her back. She smells like Noxema and toothpaste.

"Are you okay?" she asks. "If you want, I can sleep downstairs in Tyler's bedroom tonight. He wouldn't mind."

"No, please, stay here," Quinn says. "I think I need to know where my friends are, tonight."

Brittany climbs into the trundle bed and pulled up the covers. Hesitantly, she rolls towards the bigger bed and takes Quinn's hand.

"Your friends are right here," she says, her hands warm on either side of Quinn's. "Everyone is worried about you. Don't worry, it'll be okay."

Her belief is so wholehearted and simple that Quinn has to smile through her tears. She's not as trusting as Brittany, but she has to hope Britt's right. At least, that's as good a starting point as any.

***FIN***

Authors Note: I'm worried that, come April, when the choice for the writers will be to tie Quinn up in wacky teen-mom plots or "free her up" to be a high schooler again, they're going to make light of either of the two ways that Quinn will reach the end of the school year without becoming a single mom. As much as I love Glee, I'm not a big fan of using either adoption or pregnancy loss as a plot twist. It's like using cancer to add a little touch of tension -- it takes something that, in real life, changes a person in fundamental ways, and makes light of it. Pregnancy loss is never an easy way out of the corner you've written yourself into. Never. And this story is an attempt to show how it would really go down.

Soundtrack: Tori Amos, "Spark"

"She's convinced she can hold back a glacier, but she couldn't keep baby alive."


End file.
